Disclaimer: Not mine.
These Broken Wings
"Why do you do this?"
This is a question that, somehow, has not grown old over the centuries. They keep asking him as though, one day, he will have a satisfactory answer.
"Because I can?"
It's not really an answer and it's not really a reason but it's all he's ever been able to come up with. And it never has been and it never will be enough.
His broken bones had barely healed and he was already up on some cliff's edge again, spreading the sunburned wings tattooed to the backs of his arms. They didn't catch the wind, but he likes to pretend they do, and he jumped. He jumped and he breathed in the salty sea air, and he laughed because falling felt like flying.
Until he hit the water.
Then it felt a lot like drowning, but the sea had since grown tired of him. He washed up on some shore, and he expelled salt water from his lungs and lied face down on the rocks and sand. The sun burned his back until his skin was raw and his wings had blistered.
And then he found him.
He always finds him.
And now they're sitting together on whatever beach this is, and Icarus is looking at Apollo but Apollo is looking skyward. He doesn't need to squint as he gazes into the light of the setting sun, and staring at him, bathed in his own glory, makes Icarus forget about his burnt back and sore limbs.
"You need help," Apollo finally says.
And Icarus stares at him a little while longer, until his eyes ache from his radiance.
"Probably," he says, shrugging one blistered shoulder.
Because it's been centuries and his hubris still gets the better of him. Because after all this time, he's still flying too close to the sun.